WOMENS CANCER TREATMENT CHOICES BY COHORT AND ETHNICITY

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DESCRIPTION: The objective of the proposed qualitative anthropological study is to describe and examine the reasons for the use of unconventional and/or biomedical cancer treatments among 80 women with clinically-diagnosed breast cancer in San Francisco, California. The study population will consist of two age cohorts of women (35-49 and 60-74) representing three ethnic groups: European American, African American, and Chinese American. This study will investigate social and behavioral factors that play a role in cancer treatment choices, with a focus on life-stage comparisons and an exploratory approach to the influence of ethnicity. The study has three specific aims: (1) to determine the factors that distinguish unconventional cancer treatment users from non-users in the study population; (2) to explore and analyze the reasons for the selection of specific treatments (either biomedical or unconventional) or combinations of treatments (both biomedical and unconventional); and (3) to determine the different configurations of treatment combinations and the manner in which conflicting methods are reconciled. Data will be collected through a series of four in depth semistructured interviews with women recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The potential informants will be identified through a rapid case-finding service of the Northern California Cancer Center. Informants will be interviewed initially within approximately two months of diagnosis and three more times at 6 months, 18 months, and 30 months. The data analysis will be undertaken using techniques of qualitative content analysis. The Ethnograph, a social science computer software program, will be used to facilitate the management, sorting, coding, analysis of the text-based qualitative data.